Page 44 of The Break-Up Pact

Levi raises his eyebrows at me when I come back with two Blue Moons—his with one orange slice and mine with no fewer than seven. In my defense, I very rarely abuse my dimples to wheedle things out of strangers. But when it comes to scamming free orange slices on a beer, I will throw any semblance of a moral compass I have out the window.

“Got enough vitamin C there?” Levi asks, and only then do I realize he hasn’t witnessed this routine of mine before.

“Wait,” I say. “Have we never actually had a legal drink out in public together?”

I slide onto the stool next to Levi’s, the two of us pressed in so close that my knees graze his legs when I settle in.

Levi takes his beer from me with a nod of thanks. “The last time we shared a drink, it came out of a Franzia box in your cross-country duffel.”

“The coach did tell us to stay hydrated,” I point out.

Levi smirks. “The whole team still owes you a debt.”

Just then, a commotion starts to ripple through our side of the bar. We both glance up to see the game on the screen is starting.

“What team are you rooting for?” I ask.

Levi squints. “Uh. The blue one?”

“Cool. Then I’ll root for the green.”

We cheers our drinks, take hearty sips, and promptly forget that sports exist by the time we set them back down on the bar. Levi asks me what Sana’s up to, I ask him about his dad’s auto shop, and it’s like a rubber band that’s been stretching through reality snaps comfortably into place. Suddenly we know the characters in each other’s lives again. We aren’t just talking about things that happened in the past, but things that are happening right now. Things that are going to happen. Making wisecracks and inside jokes that didn’t exist between us a few weeks ago, the kind I didn’t think we’d ever make again.

We’re nearly at the bottom of our first drink, laughing at Dylan for commissioning two wedding-themed sweater-vests on Etsy to surprise Mateo, when I say, “I feel like we’re in a parallel universe right now. One where we do this kind of thing all the time.”

By now, the rest of the bar has gotten invested enough in the game that Levi and I have scooted our stools closer together, insulating ourselves against the noise. Our faces are so close that I don’t miss the quick dim of his eyes before he glances at his beer and says, “We missed a lot.”

“Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we’d stayed in touch?” I ask.

Levi is careful for a moment, like he’s worried answering the question will open an old wound. But I’m not asking to rehash the past. Levi’s been back long enough for us to find this new rhythm together, one I thought we never would. A part of me is just genuinely curious how it would have evolved over all these years, if we’d had them.

“Yeah,” he says. “I wondered that a lot.”

The words fill me with a warmth that has nothing to do with the beer.

And then, to my surprise, he lets out a breathy laugh. “Like sometimes—I don’t know. I’d be doing something that seemed objectively ridiculous. Like I’d be interviewing for a job all dressed up in my first suit, or I’d get roped into some fancy auction up in a high-rise looking out at the city where they’d serve wine that cost more than my rent, and I’d wonder what you would say about the whole thing.” His eyes soften with the smile he gives me, the kind that’s both self-conscious and sweet. “Anytime I felt out of place, I would think of you. Something funny you might say. And then I didn’t feel so out of place anymore.”

The warmth in my chest spreads out, equal parts comfort and ache. “I would have paid good money to see baby Levi in his first big finance interview.”

Levi lets out another laugh. “Just imagine me with pit stains and mortal terror in my eyes, and you’re halfway there.”

I smile, skimming my finger over the brim of my glass, staring into the dregs at the bottom. Levi goes quiet, like he can sense the words I’m working myself up to say.

“It’s funny. There were moments like that for me, too,” I tell him. “Not necessarily when I felt out of place, but when I felt… scared of something I was doing. Or lonely, even.” I feel the weight of his gaze on me, so compelling that I can’t help but look back. When I do, his eyes are so open and steady that whatever lingering self-consciousness I had falls away, and I say, “You were the person I went to when I felt that way, and it just made sense to keep thinking of you.”

Levi leans in, and there’s the usual heat I feel between us, but there’s something else just under it. Something protective, something solid in it that makes it less of a feeling and more of an intent.

“What kinds of moments?” he asks.

“Oh. I don’t know.” I catch a strand in my braid that keeps coming loose and tuck it behind my ear. I could tell him about a lot of times I was scared. About a rickety bridge over a waterfall I was sure we were going to fall through. About diving so far underwater I was terrified I’d lose sight of the surface. About a helicopter ride so choppy I was sore for days from tensing up.

But the fear was sharp, and then it was done. It was the ache of the loneliness that lingered that seems like the part worth telling.

Levi’s still watching me patiently when I finally say, “It’s weird to say I was lonely, I guess, because Griffin was there. But we didn’t talk much one-on-one. We were always part of a group. And then we’d be alone at night most of the time, and there wasn’t much to say.” I swallow, feeling my throat bob with the effort. “And I just remembered thinking sometimes—Levi and I never run out of things to say. And even when we did, we’d just make up stories instead.”

I’m smiling when I turn to him, but Levi’s own smile has almost faded entirely. I knock my knee into his to bring it back. Then I like the feeling of it so much that I let my leg linger there and feel him shift his own leg to stay close to mine.

The loose strand falls out from behind my ear again. This time Levi is the one who reaches out, the tips of his fingers skimming my forehead, grazing my ear as he tucks the strand back. “You know you’ve always got me, right?” he says. “I know things weren’t great between us, and I’ll regret that forever. But if you ever need me. No matter what. You’ve always got me.”

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